From upstairs in the boys' bedroom:Patrick: Gus, how come girls don't have peepnises?

Gus: They have Jinas. Puh Jinas. Pee Jinas. (Heh heh heh.)Patrick: Hey, Gus. Do you want to go see the Great Wall of Jina? WHAT?Great Wall of ... is he changing the subject or making a dirty frat boy joke? Boys are just different, I tell you.When Gus was first born, one of my uncles told me that boys and girls are really no different at all--we just make them that way. By giving them trucks and guns instead of dolls.It's an age-old argument, and a lot of people believe that, but with all due respect to my uncle: HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA ha ha ha HAAAA.HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA ha ha ha ha ha ha.Ha!Ha ha!You silly.Boys and girls are all kinds of different.You can tell a girl, "this a valuable object and you may not touch it", and the girl will not touch it. A boy, while he understands the words that are coming out of your mouth just as well as the girl does, is genetically hardwired to notbelievethem. The boy is not interested in your opinion about this object. He wants the facts. In order to assess an object's true worth with any degree of accuracy, he has to destroy it and measure how hard you cry.

It's the only way.

To that point, I'm thinking about pitching a script for a PBS spin-off called Gus & Patrick's Antiques Road Show. ELEANORThis is a mahogany Chiffonier I inherited from my great great great Grandmother Dorothea, who was instrumental in helping slaves through the underground railroad. Her initials and those of all the slaves she assisted are carved into the inside of this drawer. I figure it's worth quite a bit, but--GUSWell, let's take that drawer out , Eleanor, and see if it would make a good police boat. You be the bad guy (pretend you're drowning!) and I'll jump around in the boat with these dirty golf cleats I got at the Goodwill and shoot you. PATRICKPchoo. Pchoo. Pchoo. You're DEAD, Eleanor. She's dead, Gus. Many tears I have shed over the demise of our couch, our coffee table, our carpet, our walls, our dresser, the dining room chairs, our kitchen table, the knobs on the cabinets, Aunt Ali's painting, Aunt Elizabeth's painting, THE PLATE GLASS WINDOW ... and many days I have wished to have just One. Nice. Thing.But if you really want to know the true value of things--which is to say they're justthings--boys are just the little people to drive that lesson home.Now I'm not saying boys are more difficult than girls--or that I have it harder than mothers who have girls ...Wait.Yes.Yes I am.